Back to school!

Today was the 1st day of class. I was really looking forward to it as I'm now officially in the Collection Class. This one year class is probably the most stressful but the most interesting one. The goal is to create a 5 looks collection within a year.

I absolutely love thinking about a collection, making cohesive looks and not just some single, independent outfits.

With my best friends at school, we started thinking/working on it over the summer break. I already have the moodboard and 50 black and white sketches due in two weeks. I'm now working on colors and fabrics and plan on making my slopers this week because I do not like the ones we're using at school.

I find the fabrics and colors choices quite hard. Probably because I'm not that good at making choices & I will order fabrics online as stores around are too expensive. Also, I have to rework the moodboard to adjust some colors and layer/mask on computer.

If I do not plan on posting a lot of pictures of my collection before presenting it next year, I can already tell you the season and title:

Point de Vue

Fall/Winter 2013

Have a nice school year!

Bad pants fundraising fashion show

Our school was contacted by the Texas Children hospital for a fundraising.
They wanted to have some students to design "bad pants" for local media personalities for a fashion show.

I was glad to be amongst the 5 students who where asked to do that (and yes, it has something to do with the fact that I spent my whole summer hanging around school). On that project, my friend at school was my partner. It was my first time working with someone on a design project and it was really interesting.
We both had to work against what we like as none of our style is funky. We usually design neutral, simple, elegant looks. But it was really good to work outside of your confort zone.
Here is what we ended-up with:

Also, one challenge for us was to meet to work on that on the only short week we had to make that happen. But as fashion designers, we're up to any challenge!
Here is our model, backstage just before the show:

And here are the other students' designs:

Can you see how everyone is having fun? Aren't the pants so bad that they're awesome?
And I must say that they are all really well made.

The event was really nice and I would do it again...

Have a nice week!

My First Wedding Dress!

Last winter, I spent a great deal of time in every single bridal store in town to help my friend find her special dress. But I must say I wasn't unhappy about that. It gave me the opportunity to spy on thousands of dresses, looking for inspirations, finishing, techniques, materials...

If you're in fashion design, you know exactly what I mean.

Anyway, I loved it and wanted to try myself to sew a wedding dress but had no reason to do so. And seriously, with the amount of work & fabric involve to make such a dress, it is pointless to make one "just for fun".

When, in the Spring semester, the teachers started encouraging us to enter a fashion design competition in Dallas, I had what I was hoping for: a good excuse to spend time and money on this kind of project! I love school!

After sketching about 10 dresses, I choose to make a simple yet elegant one which would make me work on bustiers.

Here is my dress, walking on the Dallas Career Day runway:

Isn't it super pretty? Well, I know the model is not for nothing in that, but still!
I didn't win anything at the contest, but it did not matters. My design was part of the opening looks. It was so amazing to see my dress coming out on such a professional show.
I loved loved loved it.
I loved it so much that I'm now looking for as many runway as I can get for all my designs. And I'm definitly going back next year, even if I don't enter anything in the contest. I just loved this show!


But I'm here to talk about my dress, so here are some pictures who might interest the sewer among you:

From top to bottom & left to right, you can see:

- The skirt pattern in progress

- a try out of the draped part, just for fun, with the fabrics I had on hand, on top of the just sewn bustier

- The dress, waiting to be lined

- A close-up of the finished bustier with the draped satin on top.

And because a bride as to be the prettiest under every angle, here are different views of the dress:

Here is the same dress but at the end of the year fashion show at school.
I told you I'm now showing my garment as much as possible!

For this show, I made the head-piece during my millinery class:

I must confess that is the dress is exactly my style, I think the hat is a bit too much. Yes, I like simple things!

One last thing: I have something for see thru garments and thought for a while not lining the skirt but instead just make a matching satin short. Well, I didn't dare and just sticked with a more traditional gown. But don't you think it would have been cute?

Millinery: Romantic headband

 For the millinery class, one of the assignments was to make a headband.

 I shaped the millinery wire into double heat shape before giving it the curve needed to fit the head.
If the head block was convenient, I liked the fact that you can do it without any wood block, as we all have a head to try it on... Which means that anyone can make this kind of hat!

After shaping the wire, I covered it with fabric for the look as much as for the comfort.
The last step was to decorate it. I made a sinamay & organza flower:

If you fell that this hat has a deja-vu feeling, it most likely means that you're one of my fellow reader. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

I made this hat to match the dress for the Strapless dress/Advanced bustier class. And it was worn by my model at the end-of-the-school-year fashion show, last Spring.

You can see it here: Strapeless Cocktail dress.

Happy Sunday!